#animorphs gedds

[kooldewd123]

Alright I've got some THOUGHTS about the Iskoort and how they relate to Yeerk ecology that I've been dying to get out but I wanted to wait until I reached book 26 in case there was some detail I was forgetting. So obviously, the big twist with these guys is they they're actually some offshoot of the Yeerks who found a way to evolve past the need for parasitism by creating an artificial species to inhabit. The part that's been really sticking out in my mind as I reread the series, however, is that this isn't actually the first time a concept like this has been brought up. Let's take a look at Guide's description of the Iskoort:

Since we formed our symbiotes, the combination Isk and Yoort, we have been as we are now. ... The Isk cannot live without the Yoort. And to ensure this symbiosis would be real, the Yoort, too, were modified. Now Yoort cannot live without Isk and Isk cannot live without Yoort. They are one creature with two parts. - Guide, #26: The Attack

This description sounded familiar to me when I read it for some reason. That's when I realized: It's weirdly similar to the way that Seerow describes the relationship between the Yeerks and the Gedds:

[The Yeerks] have no history of harming intelligent life-forms. The Gedds are barely conscious in their natural state. It's not as if they were stealing the bodies of truly sentient creatures. They and the Gedds are symbiotic. - Seerow, The Hork-Bajir Chronicles.

The Iskoort aren't a symbol of what the Yeerks might become become in the future - they're what the Yeerks already were before the Andalites found them. The Yeerks, within their native habitat, aren't parasites, but rather mutualistic partners to the Gedds. The Gedds' bodies give the Yeerks new senses and enhanced motility, while the Yeerks' capabilities for higher thinking grant the Gedds all the benefits that come with it, such as greater survival skills and the framework of civilization. Yeerk benefits from Gedd, and Gedd benefits from Yeerk. It's not hard to imagine that over many generations, as the Yeerk/Gedd relationship grew deeper, we could have seen something strikingly similar to the Iskoort evolve.

But then the Andalites came.

The Yeerks specifically evolved to infest the barely-sentient Gedds, but it turns out that much of sentient life in the galaxy mirrors Gedd anatomy closely enough to also be viable hosts for Yeerks. Like I said before, the Yeerks didn't necessarily evolve as parasites, but they became so opportunistically when unleashed upon unsuspecting habitats that had never had any reason to evolve defenses against such a threat. You know what we call something like that in real-world ecology? An invasive species. And I just love that. Animorphs is a series with a strong, clear environmentalist message. Invasive species are some of the closest examples we have to actual villains in nature, so creating villains that reflect them is a brilliant idea. And with this perspective in mind, even more parallels start to pop up! Real-world invasive species often begin spreading as stowaways on settler ships, and the Yeerks began spreading using Andalite advance ships. Invasive species can cause ecosystem collapse by out-competing native species, and the Yeerks intentionally destroy the ecosystems of worlds they've conquered. My biology brain has been latching on to this idea ever since I read that passage from Seerow. It's such an interesting shift in the way to analyze the Yeerks' actions.

[yalikejazz9]

Contrary to popular belief, Gedds actually have very gentle hands.

This is so they can help their little slug friends when they need a little dip in their little pools.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Do you know if Gedds are ever described, specifically on the Yeerk homeworld, to have the one too-short limb? I'm wondering if when the Yeerks were introduced to space travel and took a population of host Gedds with them, they didn't prepare enough for the effects of inbreeding. (though that also depends on Gedd reproduction/maturity rate. how long would they have to have been in a limited population to accumulate mutations. were yeerks trying to do gedd eugenics even before Seerow.)

We don't ever see the yeerk home world in canon — the closest we come is a hologram in Hork-Bajir Chronicles and Esplin 9466's attempt to recreate it from memory in Andalite Chronicles. So I feel like the gedd eugenics read is totally supported by canon, as is the interpretation that the yeerks somehow help "course correct" gedds while inside their brains.

[church-of-crayak]

got really into the idea of miku being an andalite text-to-thoughtspeak software mascot!! here is a deeply y2k andalite hatsune miku

[milquetoast-zeitgeist]

Interesting take.

So the yeerks, at a basic level, are motivated to infest other species in order to gain access to better senses and have mobility outside the yeerk pools. They're parasites and that's how they work.

Now, it's wrong for them to enslave species such as humans, hork-bajir, andalites, taxxons, etc.

But I also think it would be wrong to consider morphing technology as a solution (that is, having yeerks go permanent morph as a different species to have senses and mobility). That would essentially be telling yeerks to voluntarily have their species go extinct because it sucks, and that's questionable to say the least.

So my question is, are there any species on Earth that would be suitable as an alternative yeerk host? Like is there any species that the able-to-talk-to-each-other species would be cool with yeerks generally infesting? The animal would have to be one with a large enough brain for the yeerk to live, and there would have to be lots of them/potential for lots of them, and also able to communicate with the other talk-to-each-other species in some way.

Would, like...racoons work for this? Would we be cool with racoons being controlled by intelligent brain slugs? Are racoons big enough? As for communication I think racoons have hands/arms that are capable of sign language so that's just an ordinary translation issue.

[wandringaesthetic]

Some Animorphs thoughts, and some general violence in media thoughts:

So the majority of yeerks the Animorphs have to face, have innocent slaves as their hosts. So, taking Animorphs as a metaphor for IRL wars, KAA is communicating that many people fighting in a war simply aren't there by choice and also that collateral damage in war almost inevitably hits some unambiguously innocent people.

BUT ON TOP OF THAT

You have the yeerks, who have very limited senses and mobility in their unhosted state. There's a species on their home planet they can parasite into, but their capabilities are not so great either, and they're not very numerous. (Though, as I'm writing this, I wonder if the Yeerk distaste against Gedd hosts is more of a social thing cuz it signals low status or if this is maybe even the result of propaganda) If they want to have full sensory experiences and if they want to go to the stars, they're going to have to enslave other races.

(or..... Do something more complex, like some bio-engineering, but that's going on a tangent)

Early in the books, the yeerks are perceived as unnuanced evil. From at least #19, you get their perspective, which imo doesn't make them justified, but it does make them understandable. If they want to see and hear and run and feel the wind on their face, if they want that for the majority of their peers.... Let's find a low tech alien species with a central nervous system and enslave all of them. Add to those desires, pressure from your imperial/extreme meritocracy government where the "merit" is determined by people who are empire-pilled....

Understandable.

AND THEN YOU ALSO GET VOLUNTARY HOSTS

The books don't really elaborate on this aspect much, because I think it got into some territory even KAA was uncomfortable with tackling for juvenile readers.

Some of these are "voluntary" in the sense Tobias was in MM4, i.e., he didn't really understand what he was getting into and was like "oh God no" and then it was too late.

For the others.... You gotta ask yourself why a person would choose to give their lives over to a brain slug, and my answers for that are various situations of desperation: addiction, severe mental illness, severe poverty etc. But I think a few were probably promised, well, something like illuminati membership, and found even what they actually got to be acceptable. I make none of my own decisions and am a passenger in my body, but I *am* living in wealth and comfort!

The Animorphs view these people as traitors to humanity and basically incomprehensibly evil, and there's SOME of that happening imo, but I think mostly not. I think, maybe if you are living on the street and you get a brain slug but you are no longer living on the street some would see this as acceptable terms.

So anyway, my point is the majority of hosts and at least a significant minority of the yeerks would not be on earth trying to enslave all humans if they had better choices. So with each controller killed, you're killing one innocent and one "well, they made their choices (sort of)"

And through this all, I want to reinforce that while the Animorphs sometimes make some questionable moral choices, their overall fight is always portrayed as just. And I would argue that it is. Earth is being invaded. The stakes are most life on earth and the freedom of all humans. Worthwhile to crack some eggs for that omelette. Some of the moves Cassie makes towards some reconciliation with the yeerks were incredibly strategically dangerous. Ended up being key to ending things! But risky! My point is, some of the "good" "morally pure" choices, while ultimately portrayed as correct, got people killed!

VERSUS

More common and acceptable portrayals of violence. Bloodless displays of violence . Violence where there is a clear good guy and bad guy. Our society (especially, if that's, yanno, US Americans) does not disapprove of violence. We quite approve of it, actually. Violence is all ages entertainment. We disapprove of realistic or even semi-realistic portrayals of it.

Most fantasy violence, Especially fantasy violence in children's media, isn't ugly, and moreover isn't messy. There isn't friendly fire. Either the bad guys are inhuman monsters or they're ostensibly human but faceless (like stormtroopers). And don't get me wrong, some media that I love operates like this. There are good guys who do violence and they are mostly held up as heroes for it. Not always in universe, some superheroes have complicated or negative public images, ....but definitely they are portrayed as Unambiguously just to the audience. Versus IRL, where even for justified violence, someone is probably going to be mad at you about it.

Is it more damaging to portray an ugly, fucked up violence? Or a sanitized violence? Nearly all irl violence is messy and I'm not just talking about gore when I say that.

[featherquillpen]

Animorphs Early Series Fic Recs

Some folks on the podfic Discord server are reading the series for the first time, and they want to dip their toes into fic without spoilers. So I'm helping them out by putting together these fics, which have no spoilers beyond the first ten books.

The Yeerk and the Gedd: A Natural History by Nate the Ape

Some speculative xenobiology about how Yeerks evolved. Very interesting to think about.

Home for Dinner and Weekends by HotPinkCoffee

Pre-canon fic about Marco's mom and how she became infested. It's devastating, and a wonderful POV from one of my favorite minor characters.

The Class by FreakApple

In which Chapman teaches the Animorphs sex ed. Yes, the Animorphs learn about STIs and condoms from a Yeerk, and they don't handle it well. It's very funny.

Break Time by Desdemon

A modern AU, in which Ax learns how to use an iPhone. Light 'n' fluffy.

One Hour by Derin

Devastating fic focused on an original character: a voluntary Controller who's started to have some regrets about his choices.

All the Light We Cannot See by Zelos

Cassie and Jake go on a date, and Jake helps Cassie with some of her insecurities. Cute 'n' fluffy.

Millennimorphs by dragonmorph

An AU in which the events of Animorphs take place later, when the kids are 30. Covers the first two books in the series. Really interesting updates to include surveillance capitalism, etc.

Five of Your Seconds by dragonmorph

A fun awkward Ax/Marco fic set in book 6 while Jake is suffering The Agonies in the shed.

And if I may rec a few of my own fics that fit the theme:

Home(work)

In which Tobias tries to reclaim a sense of normality in his weird hawk life by helping Jake with his homework.

Five Things That Never Happened to Marco (and one that did)

A short AU that asks, "What if Marco's dad got so depressed after his wife's 'death' that he committed suicide?" Big CWs. Bring tissues.

Five Things That Never Happened to Melissa (and one that did)

A short AU that asks, "What if Melissa Chapman had been at the construction site?"

Sancho Panza

An AU that asks, "What if Marco were already a Controller at the time he went to the construction site?"

[swan2swan]

I saw the Council, hovering safe in their hologram. Again they were spectators at a battle. Like human fans at a sporting event. They called out advice, groaned at defeat, cheered at victory. One of the Taxxon Council members became so excited he ate the head of a passing Gedd attendant in a single bite of his red-rimmed mouth.

THAT’S HILARIOUS

[tomberensonsghost]

Rating of Aliens based on how well they can Throw

Andalites: Don’t even know what ‘throw’ is, completely unfamiliar with the concept of propelling an object unaccompanied through the air. Prefer running it over to you on their dainty little hooves.

Humans: Ability varies, but in general acceptable in distance, accuracy, and force. Do not in fact have a game where they propel rocks at opponents’ faces, but this concept is entirely in line with other activities that humans enjoy.

Hork-Bajir: Born to throw.

Taxxons: Why throw when you can eat?

Gedd: One arm is little, one arms is big, attempting to throw with either one will cause the Gedd to lose their balance and the object to roll sadly a few feet in front of them.

Yeerks: Nearest approximation to throwing is when a Yeerk uses a very strong echolocation pulse to move an object toward another Yeerk. Of course, as more of the universe is explored, Yeerks are finding more and more ways to propel objects.

Ellimist: Elllimists are not allowed to interfere in the lives of others, so any knowledge that they have of throwing is purely theoretical. They would absolutely never throw a planet out of alignment in order to change its climate. That is ludicrous.

Helmacrons: Researchers were sent to investigate this civilization, but have not yet returned. We do not worry for their safety, though, as we have received members of the Helmacron leadership as collateral. We expect their return any day now.

Iskoort: While it is acceptable for any Iskoort to ‘throw’ in the idiomatic sense (e.g. to ‘throw a party’ or ‘throw out the trash’), one must be a member of the Throwers’ Guild in order to participate in throwing literal objects. But don’t throw too hard, or the object may sail over the edge of the platform, a member of the Fetchers’ Guild will have to retrieve it for you.

[sarifel-corrisafid-ilxhel]

I drew some cute aliens and a quadcopter.

Left to right: Hork-Bajir, Weird Tailless Biped, Andalite, Taxxon, Yeerk in a quadcopter, Gedd, Garatron.

I’m also trying a new style for a couple of things. How does it look?

[kooldewd123]

vibrating in my seat remembering that the predator graphic novel comes out soon and we're less than a month away from official artwork of eva

[thenixkat]

It really makes the most sense if the yeerk ability to infest things was a form of tool use and that gedds are a) domesticated and (b) the yeerk world equivalent of working dogs

Idk, maybe gedds can see as well as they do because they’re domesticated/artificially modified critters. Like, every other lifeform described from their homeworld is blind.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

I don't know if someone discussed this before, but do we know if there were any gedds on earth during/by the end of the invasion? If there were, what do we think happened to them after the war?

Maaan, I wish we had more intel on the gedds. It's possible that Aftran and Edriss are correct in their perception that gedds lack higher-order brain functions and genuinely benefit from symbiosis with yeerks... and it's possible that this is the same flavor of lie as humans telling each other that insects don't feel pain.

I sorta prefer the idea that it really is symbiosis, because then Seerow interrupts a fully-functioning ecosystem by infecting the yeerks with Andalite-Style Imperialism. And that fits with the themes of the series better. Whereas "there's no non-harmful way for yeerks to inhabit hosts" feels less on-brand.

That said... where does that leave the gedds? Maybe as hosts for yeerks who want to remain yeerks, but also want to leave the pool at times? Maybe they return to the homeworld? Maybe in some kind of protected Earth space, like the hork-bajir and taxxons? (If so, and if they don't have their own Toby or Arbron, I shudder to think about the risk of exploitation.) I'm torn, because the question of their sapience and independence is so unanswered.

[grilledcheese-savage]

When I was younger and reading book 6 of Animorphs, I thought the fugue just left voices in Jake’s head. Like, he had a hork bajir in the there, speaking a language he can’t understand. He has a chill af gedd in there. And then temrash. He was the most “dominant” voice in his head. I thought that he just made very bad suggestions to Jake that he just ignored like that bagel meme. So I drew it.

[lorenfangor]

this is in the vein of my post from earlier, but -

the thing about Animorphs and disabiity is that the Yeerks are both heavily coded to be disabled and intensely, fiercely ableist toward themselves and everyone else. both of those things are textual. Aftran talks at length about how it’s unfair that she has to be blind in her natural state and she and the other Yeerks ignore or kill disabled people rather than infest them.

this thread of internalized ableism runs deep through every book, and it shifts the whole focus of the conflict.

the Yeerks are not true parasites. at no point in their life cycle do they need to take a host. perhaps they evolved the infestation traits to avoid predation or to achieve a symbiosis with the Gedd, but they do not have to take hosts. they take hosts because they enjoy the process of taking hosts (I’ve discussed host addiction before) and they feel like they’re only deserving of joy and happiness when they have the capacity to see or taste or speak or whatever. the Empire’s propaganda relies upon the self-hatred of its citizens, and Yeerks who refuse to take hosts are in fact forming an ideological threat to the regime. The YPM genuinely can’t do much except exist as an opposition force since they refuse to take hosts, but that opposition force is imo enough - they’re proving they can live happily without senses, without a host body. They’re proud of who they are as they are, much like disabled people on Earth are. they don’t have eyes, but they don’t feel they need eyes to be happy.

it’s not shocking that Taylor is the most dedicated voluntary Controller we meet, when canonically her villain origin story is being subjected to intense and frighteningly horrific ableism from her former friends and her former peer group - she’s ripe for exploitation, because she buys into the core ideology of the Yeerk Empire, which is “you are not good enough as you are and you must meet specific standards to deserve to live”. she already believes that, which makes her the perfect soldier. in fact, I daresay she probably hates herself enough to suppress her own existence and her own mind - why not just let the Yeerk use your body and be you, since the Yeerk values your physical form more than you do?

I’m on this train of thought because there’s an argument I’ve seen that basically states the whole series is fundamentally ableist because the Yeerks are coded as disabled, but are also villainous, and many of them achieve peace by going nothlit in bodies that aren’t their own (which supposedly sends a message that their bodies as they are aren’t good enough).

I can’t in good conscience do anything but wholeheartedly disagree - yes, the Yeerks are disabled, yes, the Yeerks are villains, but that’s the whole point.

disabled people aren’t possessed of magical get-out-of-atrocities-free cards that render us incapable of being terrible, and what’s more, the Yeerks’ disabled-coded status is a major reason why they’re villains in the first place. their terrible nature is the direct result of self-inflicted internalized bigotry, which is very common in marginalized spaces. on top of that, the solutions of the Yeerks returning to the homeworld and their natural state and psychologically deprogramming from harmful propaganda or bigoted mindsets or the Yeerks addressing lasting issues by voluntarily changing their bodies echoes the conflicting access needs and different perspectives across the disabled community when confronted with internalized ableism.

I don’t think this makes them more justified, more understandable, or more sympathetic. that got bolded because I feel very strongly, lol. in fact I dislike them more now - I’m disabled, and the Yeerks being disabled doesn’t make them want to kill me any less. they’re not my people when they think I should be dead for not having a functioning body or brain. but I think it’s interesting that a series criticized for its messy and problematic handling of disability actually has a lot to say regarding societal assumptions about how disabled people should be, and how harmful those are.

[featherquillpen]

"a world of indescribable beauty": an animorphs meta

In Book #19 The Departure, we finally hear a perspective from a Yeerk, Aftran 942, about why the Yeerks left their planet and began conquering other species as hosts. One of the reasons she gives is Andalite imperialism, which makes a lot of sense: the Andalites began occupying and building military bases on the Yeerk planet before the Yeerks posed any kind of threat to them. This obviously doesn't justify enslaving other species, but it is certainly a reason why the Yeerks won't just go home to their pools: they would be submitting themselves to utter Andalite domination.

But there's another reason Aftran gives that is given a lot more emphasis within the story. It goes like this:

“In our natural state, we have an excellent sense of smell. We have a good sense of touch. We can hear. We can communicate, using a language of ultrasonic squeaks. But we cannot see. We are blind, until we enter a host. Over the millennia we have moved up the evolutionary chain to more and more advanced hosts. Eventually, the Gedds became our basic host bodies.

“They are clumsy, slow creatures. But they have eyes. Oh, you can’t imagine! You can’t imagine the first time you enter a Gedd brain and seize control and suddenly, you are seeing! Seeing! Colors! Shapes! It’s a miracle. To be blind and then to see!”

Suddenly she stooped down and snatched up a caterpillar from a leaf. “Do you see this? This is what I am, without a host body. Helpless! Weak! Blind!” She spun and pointed at the meadow. “Do you see those flowers? Do you see the sunlight? Do you see the birds flying? You hate me for wanting that? You hate me because I won’t spend my life blind? You hate me because I won’t spend my life swimming endlessly in a sea of sludge, while humans like you live in a world of indescribable beauty?”

Aftran says that Yeerks want to infest host bodies because Yeerk pools are disgusting and vision is magical. She takes Cassie on a journey in this book of becoming a caterpillar, nearly blind, and coming to appreciate once more the glory of her vision.

For years I have known that this narrative is contemptibly ableist, positioning a blind life as a terrible life worth enslaving others in order to escape. But after reading the book An Immense World by Ed Yong, a book about how animals perceive the world through a dozen different senses, I think this narrative presented in book 19 and throughout the Animorphs series is not just ableist, but also betrays disdain, ignorance, and contempt for the astonishing and beautiful diversity of animal perception - a very poor move for a book series very much about the beauty of animal diversity.

The sensory world of a Yeerk

Aftran tells us about the senses Yeerks have, and we see them from Cassie's point of view in book 29 and Visser Three's point of view in The Hork Bajir Chronicles as well. They have an excellent sense of smell, a good sense of touch, they can hear, and they can echolocate. They may have other senses that Aftran didn't list, such as heat-sensing (to find Kandrona rays, perhaps) or electroception. But let's stick to the ones we know they have.

Smell, as shown in the books like book 1 and 21 where a point of view character morphs a dog, is a remarkable sense. While our eyes can only detect three colors in various combinations, a sense of smell could differentiate thousands upon thousands of unique scents. In aquatic environments, like where a Yeerk lives, a strong sense of smell can be used for navigation: different areas of water with different dissolved nutrients will smell different, creating a scent-scape. Smell also has a time dimension that vision does not. People and things leave trails of smell behind, which means a keen sense of smell can delve into the past. Approaching beings have a wave-front of smell in front of them, so you can also smell what's coming, sometimes from a very long way away, if the scent molecule is very small and volatile. More than any other sense, smell gives you access to the past, present, and future of a place.

In water especially, a sense of touch can create a fantastically nuanced sense of the world around you. Since Yeerks swim, they likely have touch receptors that give them a sense of flow, like the lateral lines of fish. In the ocean, everything is touching each other at a distance through the medium of water, via the currents created by swimming. The same would be true in a Yeerk pool: a Yeerk would likely be able to feel everything and everyone moving around it, each wriggle of a fellow Yeerk felt on the skin like a caress.

Our closest template for the Yeerks' underwater sonar shown in book 29 is the sonar of dolphins, which is even more remarkable than Applegrant showed in the various books where the Animorphs become dolphins. If Yeerk sonar is like dolphin sonar, then they are living medical scanners: their sonar can penetrate flesh to internal organs, as long as they are underwater. They would be able to perhaps hear the brain of a submerged host, or at least the skull. They would sense the contours of things buried in the sediment below the water. Sonar is very finely tuned because those who use it can adjust the frequency, length, pitch, and volume of their calls depending on what they want to detect. Imagine if you could "tune" your vision to different wavelengths: that's what sonar is like.

From all this, I think we can draw only one conclusion. That "world of indescribable beauty" where Aftran says that humans live? The Yeerks lived in one, too. It was just a different world with different indescribable beauty.

The problem with centering vision

First of all, let me be clear: the worst part about this narrative, in book 19 and throughout the Animorphs series, is that it's ableist. It's incredibly cruel to blind readers to suggest that they live in a world without beauty. This cruelty shows in the way book 49 treats a human blind character, Loren, who is also depicted as having an impoverished life-- not so much because she is literally dirt poor, but because she's longing for sight, which Tobias provides her via the morphing power.

But there is another big problem: this narrative undermines a lot of the key themes that Animorphs is trying to communicate.

Within book 19 itself, the passage I quoted above is trying to make Aftran more sympathetic. She's not just a monster who enjoys controlling and dominating others; she infests hosts for a supposedly good reason: because her sensory world is devoid of beauty and joy and hosts give her access to it. It's a turning point in the story for how we view this character. But if we reject the premise that a Yeerk's life in a pool is dreary and joyless because it is not sighted, Aftran here becomes very unsympathetic. Like a colonizer who already has a countryside manor but also wants a cottage on a tropical beach, Aftran already lives in a world of indescribable beauty, but she wants to exploit other people so she can experience the beauty of their worlds in addition to her own.

One of the core themes of Animorphs is the beauty and wonder of biodiversity. Aftran celebrates the beauty of the meadow in the passage above from book 19. When the Animorphs morph dogs (book 1), their sense of smell is a wonder; when they morph dolphin (book 4), their sonar is a miracle. But when Yeerks rely on those same senses, they’re inherently inferior to vision.

For a long, frozen moment of disbelief, I did not know what was happening. I didn’t understand what my brain was receiving.

How could I? How could any Yeerk who has not had a host?

Sight!

Objects - not felt, not smelled, not reflected on sonar - but seen. It was like a sonar image, but oh, so much more. So much!

(The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, Chapter 5)

Which one is it, Applegrant? Is the diversity of perception a good thing, or is vision the best sense and everything else a distant second? You can’t have it both ways.

The third problem is that this narrative undermines another core theme of Animorphs: anti-imperialism. This deserves its own section for a deep dive.

Anti-imperialism and the diversity of embodiment

Anti-imperialism is a core theme of Animorphs. K.A. Applegate’s father served in Vietnam. Parallels are drawn throughout the series between the Andalite-Yeerk war and proxy wars between the U.S. and the Soviet Union: the Vietnam War (in The Andalite Chronicles) and the first Gulf War (in Visser.) The Andalites and the Yeerks are like the Americans and the Soviets, causing immense suffering on other planets in their proxy wars over species that they consider either slaves or necessary sacrifices.

One of the ways that empire works is that the bodies of imperial subjects are designated inferior and in need of correction. For example, in the U.S., natural Black hair is considered to be inherently “unprofessional,” and in many professions it must be shaved down or chemically straightened to be “professional.” Now, the Yeerks are themselves imperialists, but before they became the Yeerk Empire, they were occupied by an Andalite military force that considered their bodies to be disgusting and inferior before any Yeerk had ever raised a weapon against them:

«Orders are to avoid incidents,» another Andalite said. «Don’t you know these parasites are our brothers?» This was said with a sneer.

The Gedds moved closer.

«Orders or not, these filthy slugs are not touching my ship.»

(The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, chapter 1)

This is exactly how empires work. It’s good writing. But then we run into a problem, which is that every Yeerk we meet in the series agrees with the Andalites that their bodies and their senses are inferior. Aftran speaks disparagingly of “swimming endlessly in a sea of sludge,” which is the Yeerks’ natural state, but humans and Andalites consider disgusting. Aftran, Visser Three, and other Yeerks think vision, an important sense for Andalites and humans, is superior to sonar, an important sense for Yeerks. In the entire series, we never meet a single Yeerk who enjoys being a slug, living in a pool, and perceiving with Yeerk senses. They are all eager to either enslave host bodies or use the morphing power to permanently change their bodies. The series justifies the Andalites’ imperialist beliefs: the Yeerks agree that their bodies are in need of correction.

Celebrating the diversity of embodiment, lifting up all bodies as different and equal, is an anti-imperialist message. What Animorphs gives us by depicting (abled) human and Andalite bodies as enviable and Yeerk and Taxxon bodies as hellish prisons to be escaped at any cost, is an imperialist message.

How to fix it

The series has been done for twenty years now, but we’re all fans here, and we like to transform our favorite works. I’ve done a lot of work in my series Dæmorphing to fix this narrative, and I think there are a lot of opportunities to do so in fic and fanart.

Be realistic about animal perception. Applegrant do a much better job than most authors on researching animals and trying to depict them realistically, but they still tend to overplay the role of vision in the various animals the Animorphs become. For example, when Ax and Marco morph wolf spider, vision is emphasized as an important sense for them, when in fact touch/vibration is much more important to them when they hunt.

Depict aliens (and humans!) who prefer other senses to vision. There’s an opportunity to do this with Loren, a blind human given an ableist narrative in canon, and Elena, a blind girl the Animorphs rescue in book 51. You could also depict a Yeerk who experiences vision via a host and decides they like their own senses better.

Show Yeerks as victims of empire, not victims of their own bodies. I think this interaction that Ax has with a Yeerk in book 52 is very revealing. He’s caught a Yeerk in falcon morph who wants to stay in that morph and become a nothlit.

«I will be free,» the falcon insisted. «I will fly. I will see. No more need for Kandrona. No more orders, no more of this horrible war. I’ll just fly away.»

I understood. This creature was like Tobias, my true shorm. What a human would call my “best friend.”

Tobias was once a human boy. A very unhappy human boy. He stayed in red-tailed hawk morph for longer than two hours. I suspect he did it on purpose. It was his way of escaping the complexities of human life.

Tobias was abused and neglected and lived in poverty and chose a hawk body to escape the miseries of his life. This is exactly what this Yeerk wants. And it’s not just about wanting to see: it’s about wanting to escape the horrors of the Yeerk Empire. This is fertile ground to reframe the Yeerk desperation to escape into a host body or a nothlit form.

The average Yeerk did not ask to become a foot-soldier of empire. Throughout the series we meet Yeerks who do not like the role they were given. If Aftran lives in a world without beauty, then it’s not because of her senses; it’s because she lives under empire. Think of the Yeerk pool on Earth compared to how a pool must be on their own planet. The Yeerk pool on Earth is a giant concrete tub. A pool on their planet may have teemed with other life. It may have had all kinds of differences in sediment, rocks, water composition, sunlight. The Yeerks on Earth are like rats in a barren cage. Their senses didn’t deprive them of “a world of indescribable beauty”: the Yeerk Empire did.